WHAT NEXT IN THE UKRAINE ?
Commonwealth and Foreign
By HUGH P. VOWLES
IF asked whether Herr Hitler will attack the Soviet Union, I should answer : " Probably, provided a suitable oppor- tunity occurs." During the past five years he has never relinquished his efforts to create the desired conditions as speedily as possible. There is ample evidence, on the other hand, that Stalin has been equally determined to delay the attack, and to ensure the defeat of his opponent should it occur. On this latter point it is only necessary to read the verbatim reports of the Moscow Trials ; to recall speeches made by Soviet leaders ; to bear in mind that early in 1937 a t,000-mile Maginot line of steel and concrete, from Lake Lagoda to the Black Sea, comprising vast underground fortresses equipped with every requirement for prolonged occupation by the garrisons, was completed ; to bear in mind also more recent developments in Leningrad and its vicinity calculated to discourage aggression from the Gulf of Finland ; and, finally, to note the enormous expenditure on the Soviet Army and Air Force.
We know from Mein Kampf and other Nazi sources that Hitler's objective is the Ukraine. After his seizure of power in 1933 he lost no time in taking the initial steps. Alfred Rosenberg was given the congenial task of making contact with Russian émigrés who, in all the major cities of Europe but chiefly in Paris and Prague, have since 7920 ceaselessly intrigued for Ukrainian independence. Some émigrés there are whose sense of loyalty to their country prevents them from taking part in such activities, but others, in the words of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb, " claim to maintain staffs in France and organisations of thousands of officers and men in Manchuria and the Balkans, ready, on any signal, to invade the U.S.S.R." Rosenberg's first move was to invite a number of Tsarist officers and several members of the former Russian nobility to Berlin. Later on the ex-officer of the Imperial Guard and one-time Hetman of the Ukraine, Pavel Skoropadsky, visited General Goering, with whom he has maintained close contact ever since. A Russian Nazi organisa- tion was formed with branches as far afield as Harbin in Manchuria. This was revealed at the trial at Berne in March this year of Boris Toedtli, a Swiss citizen of Russian extraction and European leader of the Russian Nazis. The organisation secures adherents and sees that they get suitable military training. It sends agents into Soviet territory to collect military and other information. Its secret emissaries penetrate the Ukraine, hoping to find and encourage disaffected elements among the people.
Evidence from many quarters points to the conclusion that Herr Hitler desires to create an " independent " Ukrainian State, to be carved out of Carpathian, Polish, and Soviet Ukraine. What is not yet clear is whether he intends to avoid a clash with the Soviet Union until he has established a Western Ukrainian State under Nazi domination. Before considering what prospects there are of success in either undertaking, it is desirable to summarise a few facts about the Ukrainian people. For, as Sir Bernard Pares remarks in his History of Russia, it is the common people who throughout history have determined the course of events in that country.
There are perhaps 45,000,000 Ukrainians in Europe and another million or so in the United States and Canada.
By far the greatest number, some 35,000,000, live in the U.S.S.R. There is not now, nor has there ever been, a Ukrainian nation in the sense of this people being sharply distinguished from other Russians. History shows that both Ukrainians and Great Russians must have experienced a varied commingling of blood with that of other peoples.
The chief ethnological differences between Ukrainians and Great Russians are probably due to a larger element of Tartar blood in the former and of Finnish blood in the latter. Frequent large-scale migrations through the centuries have made it impossible to think of either group as comprising a distinct entity. Philologists have not yet decided whether Ukrainian should be regarded as a dialect or a separate language. It is important to note that the Ukrainians have been victims of prolonged religious persecution. For centuries Poland has adhered to Roman Catholicism, and Russia to the Greek Orthodox Church until 1917. The Ukrainians of Galicia, coming under the rule of first one State, then another, naturally experienced considerable religious difficulty. In the sixteenth century a compromise for these people was provided in the form of a new " Uniate " Church, under which they retained their Slavonic liturgy whilst acknowledging the spiritual supremacy of the Pope.
Ukrainian nationalist aspirations were repressed by Polish, Russian, and Austrian Governments alike, but were never stamped out. The Great War and the Russian Revolution brought opportunities for action. Independent republics were set up both in Russian and Polish Ukraine, but did not last long even with foreign military support. In Poland repression has continued, and the Ukrainians there still live in dire poverty. In the Soviet Ukraine, on the contrary, every encouragement has been given to genuine nationalist aspirations, though anti-Bolshevik separatist movements stimulated from abroad have been ruthlessly suppressed. There is little evidence of disaffection among the population at large, a fact commented upon by W. H. Chamberlin as long ago as 1924 when conditions were much harder than now. At the present time the people are far more prosperous and far better educated than ever before.
All things considered, it would seem that Herr Hitler can reasonably expect to be successful in Polish Ukraine, provided the Poles receive no help from other nations. Conditions are all in his favour. Discontent in Galicia is widespread. Nazi Russian agents have little difficulty in crossing the frontier from Hust in Carpathian Ukraine, and are main- taining constant contact with the pro-Nazi Polish Ukrainian organisation known as U.N.D.O. The riots in Lemberg (Lwow) last month were provoked by Nazis, and other riots on a larger scale in the near future are highly probable. We may expect the Nazi technique of aggression to be applied in the manner with which Europe is already painfully familiar.
In Soviet Ukraine Herr Hitler's prospects are of a very different order. There he will have to deal with a people strongly nationalist in culture, yet intensely loyal to the Soviet Union with a loyalty based not only on sentiment but also on reason. Like other Soviet citizens they take a great pride in the progress made by the U.S.S.R. as a whole. And, however much the decline in religious belief is to be deplored, at least the people are now free from the prolonged nightmare of religious persecution : free also from the disunity caused by religious disputes such as those which were a prominent feature of life in Tsarist Russia. The people are also inspired by a powerful ideal, reinforced by faith in the Soviet Union, in themselves, and in their future. How powerful such an ideal can be we have seen in Republican Spain, where all the resources of modern warfare have not prevailed against a half-starved people, defended for many months by untrained ill-equipped men. All this is a matter of morale ; but unlike the Spanish Republicans the Soviet Ukrainians will also have the support of vast economic resources and, to quote Herr Hider himself, " the strongest Army, the strongest Tank Corps, and the strongest Air Force in the world." These resources will certainly be utilised in their defence.
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